Archive for the ‘Stanley’ tag

Breaking land-speed records tends to be a fairly difficult proposition. The multitude of venues for doing so nowadays has opened up the opportunities for record breaking, but has also attracted more racers going after records, ratcheting the speeds up higher every year. So it’d probably make sense to find a fairly old, fairly obscure record to break. Something like the land-speed record for steam-powered motorcycles, which was last set 118 years ago.

Or thereabouts. According to Stanley historian Jim Merrick, steam-vehicle pioneer Sylvester Roper had been timed at record-setting speeds atop his Columbia bicycle fitted with a steam engine at least twice in 1896—once at 27.07 MPH and then later during the last lap of a race at Charles River Park in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at 32.4 MPH—and he claimed to have once hit 40 MPH with his motorcycle on a straightaway south of Boston. Roper died that year while atop his motorcycle during a race, apparently from a heart attack.

One other steam-powered motorcycle appears to have gone faster than Roper’s in the intervening years: An unidentified rider atop a Stearns tandem motorcycle being used to pace a bicycle race in Chicago in November 1899 recorded a speed of 45.56 MPH. Or, at least, the bicycle racer immediately behind the motorcycle recorded that speed; everybody in attendance seemed to care more about the bicyclist’s speed than the motorcycle’s.

Enter steam enthusiast Bill Barnes of Lewistown, Pennsylvania. Barnes is no stranger to going fast in a steam-powered vehicle, given that he owns and regularly drives a Vanderbilt Cup Stanley racer replica, and he has made a business of building new burners and boilers for Stanleys. While other racers have been going after the four-wheeled steam land-speed record in recent years, setting and chasing after a new record of 148.308 MPH, Barnes decided to break Roper’s two-wheeled steam record, the longest-standing land-speed record on the books.

“I had Roper’s motorcycle here in the shop a while back, and I thought, ‘I gotta break that damn record,’ and once I talked myself into it, I had to do it,” Barnes said. That was about two years ago, but Barnes said the decision also came after about 30 years of building new and improved burners and boilers, far more efficient, lighter, and stronger than those the Stanley brothers could build more than 100 years ago. “I use a little closer tolerances on the tubes, and my burner weighs about 20 pounds, where the Stanley’s burner weighed 150 pounds.”

So Barnes went to work, basing his motorcycle around his own boiler/burner combination and a circa-1908 Stanley EX two-cylinder engine, originally good for about 10 horsepower. With his modifications to the engine and steam system, Barnes figures it’s now good for six times that number. To save weight and complexity, he also decided to ditch all the pumps and run the system without a condenser. “It all goes straight out the pipe,” he said. “Don’t need to worry about water consumption when you’re only going about four or five miles at a time.” A front fork from a mid-1970s Honda motorcycle and aluminum bodywork that Barnes built himself constituted the rest of the bike.

He finished the build in time to take the steam motorcycle to the East Coast Timing Association‘s speed trials last month in Wilmington, Ohio, where he aimed to double the claimed—if not recorded—top speed of Roper’s motorcycle his first time out with his bike, ultimately posting a speed of 80.4 MPH.

“I really wanted to go 100, but 80 ain’t bad,” Barnes said. “Somebody asked me if I was scared to go that fast, and yeah, I was scared to death—I ain’t stupid.”

Barnes said he plans to head back to Wilmington next year with the bike to see if he can go a little faster, but he doesn’t imagine his record will now inspire others to go land-speed racing atop steam-powered motorcycles. “No, I don’t think anyone else will do it,” he said. “At least, I hope they have the sense not to do it.”

Conventional wisdom states that in order to photograph cars in a relatively unobstructed manner, one must get to the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance show field early, and that duty is affectionately known as the Dawn Patrol. This year, the Hemmings staff opted to play it safe, arriving onsite sometime prior to 5:00 a.m., nearly two hours before first light and a full five and a half hours before the gates open to spectators.

Shivering through the pre-dawn chill was worth it, as we managed to capture the majority of the cars in this year’s show, and many of them will appear in upcoming issues of our magazines. Rather than make our readers wait, however, we thought it appropriate to present a gallery of images captured on this year’s Dawn Patrol.

Each of the thumbnail images below is named with the year, make and model of vehicle shown. They’re presented in chronological order, and don’t necessarily represent category winners. Instead, they’re cars that caught my eye as I made my way through the show field in the early morning light. If they have anything at all in common, it’s this: As with any vehicle displayed at Pebble Beach, each is spectacular in some manner, and a worthy candidate to represent the marque in show competition. Enjoy!

The third part of the Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg Festival extravaganza during Labor Day weekend was Worldwide Auctioneers’ three-day sale that began on September 2. Their fourth annual Auburn sale boasted record attendance that sent 246 lots into the sold column, for a grand total of $13.2 million. Of the total number of lots sold, 64 were hammered during Saturday evening’s “Main Event,” which was reserved for an array of hand-selected vehicles.

Selling during the main event (as previewed earlier) was a Dragonmaster-built altered-wheelbase 1964 Dodge Charger – reportedly the only one remaining of three built – that originally ran in S/FX, and was later restored in 2003. The admission price for owning a piece of drag racing lore: $302,500, placing the car fourth on Worldwide’s top 10 list for the weekend.

Looking back at other vehicles we previewed, the barn-find 1948 Delahaye 135M – touted as having been coated with volcanic dust from the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption (we misprinted the date as 1982), and later discovered to have been on the Chapron display stand at the 1949 Paris Salon d’Automobile – sold for $247,500, good for seventh on WW’s top 10 list.

It appears as though the 1912 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost “London to Edinburgh” Torpedo Tourer failed to sell; likewise for the 1965 Shelby G.T. 350R (high bids were undisclosed for both vehicles). Conversely, the court-ordered sale of the 1911 Stanley Steamer Model 72 Runabout did trade hands for $231,000.

There were four other vehicles that cracked the $200,000 barrier, as well as 21 vehicles that achieved winning bids above $100,000. For a complete list of sold lots, click here – free registration required. Worldwide’s next sale will be the 10th Annual Classics at The Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, New Jersey, on February 24, 2012.

Steamers simply do not belong in museums; they belong out on the road, tooting their horns and chugging along silently and damply, something we discovered back in 2008 when the East Coast steam car tour come to Bennington. Fortunately, here’s your chance to pluck a steam car from a museum and toot the horn of one with this 1924 Stanley Model 750 for sale on Hemmings.com. It sounds like it’s ready to tour as well. From the seller’s description:

Those of us who took it easy during the hot months are making up for it now, and filling up the files for the winter – I’ve got at least eight photo shoots this month, with some really exciting things, including a 1906-’07 Panhard et Levassor belonging to a former Secretary of the Navy; a drivable dream barn-find 1906 REO; the last BMW 507 ever built (and one of the most original); and the infamous Lamborghini-powered “Phantom” 1967 Bizzarrini P538, which we’ll be shooting against the background of the Manhattan skyline.

If you know anything about Stanleys, you (A), probably recognize this as a non-factory body, and (B), probably recognize this car. It spent many years abandoned and decaying, until it was rescued in the mid-1950s, and this custom body built for it. Amazingly, the boiler and motor are correct for the car.

David now puts up to 5,000 miles a year on it–something like 50,000 in total, wearing out three sets of tires in the process.

A former oceanographic equipment maker at MIT via Princeton, David is an inveterate tinkerer, and his tiny basement features a huge Bridgeport machine in the corner, part of his ongoing efforts to improve the 20hp Stanley motor.

This is what “blowing off steam” means. In deference to his neighbors across the street, he’s devised this diffuser for when he’s shutting the car down. Without it and using the standard valve in front of the car, at a full 600 psi head of steam he says he can fill the road outside with dense fog on a cool, damp day, and sends a blast straight across the street, washing up against the house opposite.

A team of Britons is poised to shatter the land speed record for a steam-powered car set by Stanley in 1906.
The British Steam Car Challenge team’s racer, dubbed Inspiration, is rear-engine, rear-wheel drive and powered by an LPG-fired, two-stage steam turbine. The team hopes the steamer can reach 200 mph, breaking not only the FIA-sanctioned record set by Fred Marriott in a purpose-built Stanley Steamer, but also the unofficial record of 145.607 mph set by Bob Barber at Bonneville in 1985.
For the scoop on this high-speed steamer check out www.steamcar.co.uk

(This post originally appeared in the December 22, 2005, issue of the Hemmings eWeekly Newsletter.)

Although Barney Oldfield won’t be at Ormond Beach next year to defend the record-setting run he made back in 1910, besting the previous land-speed record set by a Stanley Steamer, he will be there in spirit among the many historically significant land-speed record cars from the early part of the previous century.
This celebration of early speed, slated for January 24-28, 2006 at Ormond Beach, Florida, will mark the 100th anniversary of the Stanley land-speed record run.
For all of the details about this once-in-a-lifetime motorsport event, call the Stanley Museum in Kingfield, Maine at 207-265-2729, or drop them an e-mail at: maine@stanleymuseum.org . The Stanley Museum’s Web site is also a great source of steamer-related info and events: stanleymuseum.org.

(This post originally appeared in the August 18, 2005, issue of the Hemmings eWeekly Newsletter.)

With their shiny brass radiator shells, polished headlamps and tall, stately bodies, brass-era automobiles are some of the most fascinating motorcars ever produced. To celebrate their place in automotive history, the 27th Annual Meadow Brook Concours d’Elegance will honor them with a special Magnificent Cars of the Brass Era tribute at this year’s concours. Also on hand will be a unique exhibit of 100-year-old centennial automobiles that were produced prior to 1906. These marques include Maxwell, Packard, REO, Stanley and others. And if you like horsepower, then you will enjoy the display of rare Chrysler Hemi-powered convertibles. The concours takes place on Sunday, August 7th in Rochester Hills, Michigan. For more details call 248-269-7672; or visit www.meadowbrookconcours.org.

(This post originally appeared in the June 23, 2005, issue of the Hemmings eWeekly Newsletter.)